Participants grouped based on age, gender, and experience faced one another in a line of rowing machines called "ergs," short for ergometers. After the individual races, the ergs were paired and linked with slides so that pairs could race together.
Mike Forster, a coach and participant said, "We spend most of our time rowing in the beautiful sunlight out on Lake Lanier and enjoying the outdoors, but during the winter, we're not able to do that. So this evil-minded person said, 'We should be able to train throughout the winter. I'll build this machine' and there it is, the ergometer. It's a machine that shows no mercy."
"What you see today is an erg race. This is a motivational thing that we use in the club to encourage our members to train through the winter, and it also brings in people from outside of the area. There are people here from Augusta, Atlanta, and from Chattanooga," he continued.
Executive Director and Head Coach John Ferriss said, "It's become a ritual to give us a criteria for how well we're doing as we progress though the winter training. We train on the ergs, so this is an event we created to make a big deal out of erg training. It's kind of a sick little party."
"There are these erg events all over the country," he said, "Some people who do really well in the United States even go to Europe and race. There was an article in the rowing magazine about an event in England last month that had a thousand people show. We'll have a few thousand go to the (national championship) event in Boston...It's become a pretty big deal."
The Rowing Club will have another, lower profile, erg race in February, and in late March they will host Lake Lanier Sprints, see their website for more information.
http://accesswdun.com/article/2005/1/142301